Brand new day in New York real estate

"So you guys wanna come take a listing?" I can't believe it. It's my second day on the job in New York, and my sponsoring broker wants me to go along as he takes a listing? I hung out in Jersey for months and never managed to glom on to anyone who was doing that. I point that out to him, and his attitude is, "well, how are you going to learn?" So I jump in the cab. There are actually four of us – but let me back up. When I realized I was going to work in New York, my next question was, where? And it turns out there were two kinds of brokerage houses: big houses that knew about my column and didn't want me to write about them, and big houses that didn't want me to take listings at 5 percent. For those of you who don't know New York City, let me say that the commission debate that has hit the rest of the country is raging here. Some listings go through at five (one senior agent at one of the top five firms told me that 20 percent of their listings did), but there'...